This prospective questionnaire study presents the evaluation by 265 students and showed the satisfactory implementation of our competence-orientated digital education format ”digital scientific otorhinolaryngology seminar”. Students stated that they saw their competences in self-organization, digital work and scientific work increased. Digital education was not only rated good, but students welcomed the seminar as a means of competence-based education. Results from evaluation should be used for future development of digital and scientific teaching formats.
Digital education in the Covid-19 pandemic: From the urgent need of implementing a new digital curriculum to sustainable teaching of digital skills
Digital teaching has a growing impact, which has been more articulated in the Covid-19 pandemic. This contrasts with the problem that medical teaching is dependent on successful teaching of practical skills in clinical subjects such as ORL. Lecturers must not forget that the students in clinical subjects nearly always favour live teaching, as personal medicine cannot be replaced especially during the learning process of practical skills. With lasting duration of the pandemic, digital teaching was rated worse (summer vs. winter term) in our study, possibly reflecting growing frustration of the students with digital teaching in general. In addition, expectation of students on the quality of online TEs is probably rising with lasting duration of digital teaching.
However, even in practical clinical settings, digital medicine is being on the rise, as seen by the advancements in telemedicine before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Further fields are medical science with artificial intelligence, and robotics. Last but not least, the digital transformation in the world affects all areas of life. Digitalization of medicine takes place not only in the work of medical professionals, but also for patients, e.g. in app-based medicine. The students, who are nowadays often viewed as “digital natives” generation, also perceive the need for digital skills. Digitalization is also an expression of increased networking between different teaching formats and medical fields, and of increased potential for national and international connectedness. As international mobility has decreased, digital interconnectedness is valued higher. Digitalized learning contents can be easily exchanged on a national or, depending on the content and curricula, international scale. Not only does this apply for medical education, but also for science: In this respect, the Covid-19 pandemic has created new standards of international co-working and development as scientific collaborations have intensified clearly (Lee et al. 2020). Still, data literacy and digital competences are not described in the national catalogues of learning targets.
However, skills of data literacy are seen as crucial for professional careers (Ridsdale et al. 2015). In terms of our study, we see student’s attitudes well reflecting advantages and possible risks of the transformation of medical education contents into digital ones. The students view digitalization as an inevitable process in the current pandemic. Risks of digitalized learning contents are clearly designated: overview and structure can be more difficult to obtain and motivation is more difficult when live formats are missing. The underestimation of processing time sheds light on an important aspect of online teaching: real workload can easily be underestimated. The risk of insufficient structure, lack of overview, and relevant highlights of contents, can be more difficult in digital teaching (Müller et al. 2018).
From a lecturer’s perspective, understanding of the student is more difficult to assess in digital education. However, our study reveals that students welcome the advantages of digital education with increased potential of self-organization, self-discipline and self-responsibility– and students regard those competences as valuable for their later professional activity.
Improving scientific skills
Our study showed that digital competence can be fostered through a seminar with a focused approach of a clinical topic. Although more students stated no interest in later scientific activity, most of the students planned a medical dissertation, for which a principal set of scientific competence is equally necessary.
With increased learning growth relevance of TE was assumed to be higher. Scientific interest was increased when the TE was well rated. The future of medicine is shaped by growing intersections between science and clinical work, for which motivation of academic offspring is crucial. Opportunities for scientific activities during medical studies need to be fostered.
However, for successful and accepted implementation of digital teaching formats, cooperation with students is even more necessary (Galgut et al. 2017). As a special feature in Germany, the decentralized political structure may complicate the nationwide implementation of digital curricula (Haag et al. 2018). Hence, further studies are necessary on the opportunities of nationwide digital and scientific education curricula.
Students increased their interest in scientific work when they gained a learning effect through the seminar. Overall, there was, however, no exclusively positive feedback by the students: on average, scientific interest was not decisively increased through the seminar, that corresponds to the low fraction of students who want to pursue a scientific career in general. The evaluation of this study is the first step to improve the teaching format in cooperation with the students to follow our goal of competence-based education. They are the target audience for the professional use of digital competences and data literacy in medicine and the focus must be put on those skills needed for their later professional career. The Covid-19 pandemic “experience” should encourage an outcome-orientated implementation of the relevant digital skills and contents in medical education.
With all that in mind, the following criteria for a successful implementation of digital scientific education can be stated as follows:
Elements for successful implementation of digital scientific education:
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sufficient underlying structural, personal and financial base for digital transformation
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continuous evaluation and cooperation with students and feedback sessions
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balanced implementation of live and digital teaching elements
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outcome- and competence- orientated implementation with
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focus on relevant digital and scientific skills for medical professionals